Several days ago, I reported that the S.CO domain name was acquired by MarkMonitor on behalf of a client. Because the Whois registrant information listed MarkMonitor's privacy proxy service (DNStination Inc.) as the registrant, it was unknown who was behind the brand protection company's acquisition.

This morning, a reader named Davis noticed that the S.CO domain name was activated, revealing that Snapchat appears to be the buyer of S.CO. If you visit S.CO right now, you will be redirected to Snapchat's homepage.

I did some Twitter searching, and I do not see any mentions of the S.CO domain name by Snapchat or any other Twitter user. This isn't surprising because the company likely hasn't announced how the domain name will be used. I would not be surprised to see (more…) → Read More

It looks like the S.CO domain name changed hands at the end of last week or over the weekend. According to Whois records at DomainTools, S.CO is now registered to DNStination Inc., the proxy provider for MarkMonitor, a brand protection and domain registration company. As of right now, S.CO resolves to a generic GoDaddy landing page.

I believe S.CO was sold by GoDaddy / NameFind, although the purchase price for the domain name will not be revealed per GoDaddy's policy. Earlier this year, Jamie Zoch reported that GoDaddy "acquired the premium domains held by the .co registry (likely ALL of the remaining ones they held)" via its NameFind business. There were quite a few single letter .CO domain names in that portfolio, including S.CO.

Back in 2012, S.CO had been used by Startup America, an organization that was co-founded by America Online founder Steve Case. At the time, it was announced that the organization would rebrand its url from StartupAmericaPartnership.org to the shorter S.CO domain name. It looks like the organization → Read More

Google's parent company Alphabet runs a division called X. For X, the "mission is to invent and launch "moonshot" technologies that we hope could someday make the world a radically better place."  In an announcement made on its X.company blog, the launch of Dandelion was announced. According to the blog post, "Dandelion will offer geothermal heating and cooling systems to homeowners, starting in the northeastern United States."

From a domain name perspective, the announcement is interesting. Dandelion is using the Dandelion.CO domain name instead of a .com domain name. Dandelion.com is registered to someone in New York City, and it is unrelated to X's Dandelion.

NameBio shows that Dandelion.CO last sold in 2013 (more…) → Read More

Aron Meystedt, Director of the Domain Names and IP category at Heritage Auctions, emailed me about a portfolio of domain names his company is brokering on behalf of an undisclosed client. The portfolio is made up of approximately 750 one word and short .CO domain names.

Here's what Aron said about this portfolio:

One of our clients is selling the best .co portfolio on the market. There are approximately 750 names, and a majority of them are ultra-short and one word names perfect for branding – and could easily be sold one at a time.

The other day I read some tech industry headlines about Kernel, "a human intelligence (HI) company developing the world's first neuroprosthesis to mimic, repair and improve cognition." According to TechCrunch, the founder of Kernel is going to be investing $100 million into this startup. Interestingly, as highlighted by Doron Vermaat on Twitter yesterday, the company is using the Kernel.CO domain name for its website:

Human intelligence company Kernel raises $100M in funding - uses a @dotCO domain https://t.co/Tbj494rE2F

— Doron Vermaat (@doronvermaat) October 25, 2016

Earlier this morning, Andrew Allemann broke the news that the auction for the .Web new gTLD extension "has concluded with a $135 million price." I really don't understand why .Web is so appealing that an entity reportedly paid 9 figures for the rights to operate the extension.

In my opinion, Internet-related terms such as "web" and "world wide web" are less widely used today than years ago. Web seems almost passé, in my opinion, although the longer term "website" is still used by pretty much everyone.

I did a Google Trends search of "web," and the results seem to corroborate my opinion on this. Aside from a slight increase in the last couple of years, there has been a significant downward slope for "web," as you can see from this screenshot I took: (more…) → Read More